Leaving Mid-Match and Skill Rating Adjustments

We’ve recently implemented a change on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One so that, if a player leaves mid-match, it will no longer affect how Skill Rating is adjusted at the end of a match.

Some context behind this change:

When you are you placed into a Competitive Play match, the game calculates each team’s probability of winning. This calculation helps identify how evenly matched two teams are, which in turn informs how your Skill Rating will be adjusted following a win or loss. Right now, the way system works is that if your team is favored to win, you will gain less Skill Rating for a win and lose more Skill Rating for a loss. And if your team is NOT favored to win, you will gain more Skill Rating for a win and lose less Skill Rating for a loss.

Previously, if a player from either team left mid-match, the game would automatically recalculate each team’s probability of winning, taking a look at not only who left the match, but also when they left. The assumption was that if a team was a person down, the odds of them winning would go down, too, and that the most accurate thing we could do was account for this when adjusting each player’s Skill Rating at the end of the match.

Despite being more accurate, we received a lot of feedback that this recalculation just didn’t feel great and that it incentivized bad leaver behavior—which is last thing we want to do in Competitive Play. As a result, the game will no longer recalculate each team’s probability of winning whenever one or more people leave. This means that your Skill Rating will always be adjusted based on your team's odds at the beginning of the match, even if there are leavers on your or the enemy's team.

From a technical perspective, this will make Skill Rating adjustments a little less accurate for that specific match, but it should ultimately feel better for the players who stay and finish it out (plus, your Skill Rating will correct itself the next time you complete a match with no leavers). We also hope this will remove the incentive to “troll” a winning team by leaving, since it will no longer have an impact on anyone’s Skill Rating.

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As always, we'll continue to keep an eye on Competitive Play and make quick improvements whenever possible. Thank you so much for your feedback and helping us make Overwatch better!